Give Him a Chance
by Padawan Jess Kenobi
Summary: Lily rejects James again, and this time he almost gives up. Sirius finally decides that he isn’t going to take anymore of this, and tells Lily exactly what he thinks about her being so cruel to James. Something happens, and Lily owes Sirius a favor...


_Title: Give Him a Chance_

_Author: PadawanJessKenobi_

_Rating: there's some language, and that's about it_

_Summary: Lily rejects James again, and this time he almost gives up. Sirius finally decides that he isn't going to take anymore of this, and tells Lily exactly what he thinks about her being so cruel to his best friend. Something happens, and Lily owes Sirius a favor…_

_Disclaimer: If I were JK Rowling, I'd have better things to do than write fan fics._

_Pleaaseeee review, I love hearing what people think. :D_

"James Potter, if you ever call me 'your girl' again, I swear I will learn one of the Unforgivable Curses and use it on you, and trust me, I will be completely willing to go to Azkaban for it, too!" Lily Evans, the object of James' unrequited affections, was glaring at him heatedly with her stunning emerald green eyes.

"I just thought you needed some help with that lecherous Slytherin guy who was all over you," James said, his voice dripping in disdain for the Slytherin who had dared to try to in over _his _Lily.

"I don't need your help, Potter, can't you get that through your thick skull? I don't need, nor want, nor ever require what you call assistance, though it is more of a hassle than anything else. And you are one to talk about "lechery," I can see the way you stare at women as though they are just mere objects to you. But then again, I've come to expect this from the arrogant James Potter, who could never love someone as much as he loves himself!" Lily didn't know what it was about Potter that set her off like this, for she was usually fairly mild-mannered and sweet, but his ways brought about a frustration in her that she never knew she even had.

James lowered his eyes from her, not knowing what to say, and the smile on his face had faded into a look of genuine hurt. Lily instantly felt bad about her words, but if she took them back, then he might get the wrong idea, and she didn't want to give him any more reason to think that she could possibly be interested in him.

Up to this point Sirius Black had been leaning against a tree, watching the familiar scene with a bemused expression on his face. He was convinced that Lily and James were like an old married couple- despite the fact that Lily seemed to despise the very air James breathed. But today Lily had crossed a line, one that Sirius was not all right with allowing her to cross.

He was just about to go over to Lily and tell her exactly what he thought about her treating his best friend like garbage, when she stormed away angrily, muttering to herself.

James looked truly hurt, and with a great sigh, sat on the grass dejectedly. Sirius walked slowly over to him, and picked up a twig on the ground, flipping it and catching it in the air with unconscious skill. He watched James turn a rock over in his hands absentmindedly.

"Women, huh?" Sirius joked, "seems like they're always on their period!"

James didn't even crack a smile at the joke, and continued to dig a little hole in the ground with the rock. "That was my excuse for her two weeks ago, and the week before that, and the month before that…. I'm starting to think that no matter what, she's going to hate me."

Sirius frowned down at his friend, and dropped to the ground next to him. "Nonsense, old boy, who couldn't love you! You're James fucking Potter, best friend to the stunningly handsome Sirius Black; those are credentials that not many people have, you know," he said with a roguish wink, trying to lighten up James' mood.

James barely smiled at him, and instead continued to build his tiny tunnel with the rock. I'm starting to think that my being 'James fucking Potter' is what ticks her off."

"No shit," Sirius muttered under his breath.

"What was that?"

"Errr…" Sirius hesitated, deciding that now was the time to be supportive, not to tear him down even further. "I said read it," he replied, pointing to the Potions book that lay forgotten by James' side. "We're supposed to finish reading chapter 12 for homework tonight… just thought I'd remind you," Sirius finished lamely, mentally slapping himself for the horrible comeback.

"Uh yeah. Thanks, I'll get to that later," James said with a suspicious look at his friend, but then it faded again to the pitifully rejected look he wore earlier. "I'm starting to think that I just don't have a chance. I've done everything to try to get Lily to like me back. I love her, Sirius, and she won't even give me a chance."

Sirius had never seen James so down before, and it sparked anger in him towards Lily. She had no right to treat James the way she did. So what if he was an arrogant git sometimes, Sirius knew how much James cared for her, and all she did day after day was reject him, and break him down. Suddenly, Sirius decided that he had had enough of Lily hurting his best friend.

"Damnit, James, you deserve better than this."

"No, I don't think I do," James said, self-pity evident in his voice.

"Oh, so that's it, she really did break you this time, didn't she?" Sirius said, and despite his rough words, he really felt awful for James.

James tried to smile, but Sirius could tell it was an empty gesture. "Nah, nothing breaks me, mate," but the tone of his voice belied his words, and Sirius knew what he had to do.

He kneeled back on the ground and threw an arm around James' shoulder in a sign of support. "You just stay here and mope some more, I'll be back before you know it," he said, before getting up, casting James one last glance, and running off in the direction Lily had walked earlier.

Sirius was a natural athlete, with a lean, yet muscular body, and it took him only a few minutes to catch up to Lily, who was talking with a few female friends that he recognized from a class he shared with them. He was in no mood to be polite, however, and roughly grabbed Lily from the crowd of girls.

The girls all stopped and gawked at Sirius; the effect of his aristocratic jaw line, and high cheekbones never lost on them. They watched him drag Lily away from them, and when he finally let her go, he ran a hand through his ear-length raven hair that fell casually into midnight blue, nearly gray, eyes.

"Oh, so now Potter's got you doing the sexy tousling of the hair, huh?" Lily said sarcastically, though she felt her heart flutter a little bit as he pierced her with those enchanting eyes of his.

"I'm not head over heels in love with you, Lily, so I'm not going to tolerate your shit the way James does."

Lily was taken aback in shock for a minute. Sirius had always been slightly arrogant, and not particularly soft-spoken, but he had never snapped at her before. "Don't you talk to me like that, Black…" she warned, before he cut her off sharply.

"No, don't YOU talk to James the way you do!" he exclaimed angrily, his eyes blazing. "What gives you the right to tear him down day after day, when all he ever thinks about is you?"

"All he ever cares about is himself, I'm surprised that he even has room in that over-inflated head of his to even acknowledge the existence of other people!"

"You don't know anything, do you? You walk around, pretending to be this river of wisdom to your little friends, helping them with their little boy problems. 'Oh don't worry Darlene, Thomas will notice you one day, I promise he will. Don't give your whole heart to him, boys always break it. Love is the greatest thing in the world, and one day your Prince will come," Sirius said, speaking a few octaves higher than normal in an attempt to imitate a girl's speech, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You know shit, though! You preach and you preach, and yet you can't look right in front of you and see someone who cares for you so much that he risks rejection by your hands every single day!"

"Oh, and I'm sure I'm the only girl that James wants to get with, to add to his list of conquests," her voice rose with intensity as he glared at him. "I am not something to be conquered, or taken."

"Oh, well of course you're right!" Sirius exclaimed with false cheeriness, though Lily could see the dangerous glint in his eyes. "James actually has this little calendar on his wall, and every six years he falls in love with a different girl, and lucky you, it's your turn!"

"Don't you dare-"

"Don't I dare what?" Sirius barked at her, effectively stopped her from speaking. "Don't I dare tell you exactly what I think of you? What I think of all the flowers he's gotten you that you've thrown in the trash? All the poetry he wrote, that you just discarded like something you picked up off the street? You think he's the arrogant one, just because people like him, and he's good at Quidditch, and a smart guy. No, no, no, Lily," Sirius said with a humorless laugh, "you are the arrogant one."

"Sirius, I-"

"I'm not finished!" he roared back, once again stunning her into silence. "I let it go day after day when I saw you break his heart every time he spoke to you. Every single time you would shut him down, and he would go to bed hurt, but every morning he woke up, thinking that maybe, just maybe, Lily would stop being a bitch and today would be his lucky day. But he never got that day, did he? You never even gave him a real chance. I should have done this before, told you exactly what I think of you.

"You preach that we should all be accepting towards one another, and you look down on us when we make fun of Snape. But you're not so different from us, Lily. We turn Snape purple, you break James heart everyday just for the sport of it. One is worse than the other; you're supposed to be smart, you figure out which is worse."

"Potter is an arrogant git, what part of that do you not understand? Or maybe your skull is just as thick as his, and you can't get it either?" she said angrily, though she was more than a little shaken at Sirius' harsh words. "Oh wait, I forgot. You're Sirius Black," she continued, the sarcasm heavy in her voice. "Sirius Black, from the prestigious Black family, hater of mudbloods and those unlike themselves. You're the master of all that is haughty, Black, and you should be the last person on earth to tell me that I'm the arrogant one."

Sirius drew himself up to his full height, which was impressive, and towered over her. "And yet here I am. And if that's what you think of me, than you're just wrong about me. But you know what, I don't even care. Your opinion of me couldn't matter less. I've lost all respect for you, Evans. I used to think you could see the truth through anything, but damn was I wrong. If you could, then you could get over yourself and see that James isn't like other guys. He puts himself out there every time he sees you, just so you can come along, red hair flowing in the wind oh so romantically, and rip him apart. He says, 'good morning Evans' you say 'screw yourself, Potter.' Something is wrong here, and if you ask me, it's not him."

"What does this even matter to you? Even if Potter would somehow stop being an ass, and we fell into a fairy-tale love, what would be in it for you? Do you think I would recommend you as a great guy to one of my friends? Is that what this is about? I don't think you would do this if there wasn't a chance you'd get something in return." As soon as she said that, Lily clamped her mouth shut, as if wishing to take back her words. She looked up at Sirius, a little scared that he would react violently, since he was known for his temper.

Sirius just looked back at her, his jaw clenching in anger, but his voice came out calm. "I used to encourage James to keep trying with you, and that one day you would see him for what he really is. You know what he said to me just before I came to talk to you? He said he didn't deserve you," Sirius shook his head, letting out a humorless laugh. "But it's you, Lily, you're the one that doesn't deserve him."

With that, Sirius cast one more smoldering look at her, and walked away, leaving his biting words floating in the air. Lily swallowed hard, feeling her head spin with his words. Was he right? Was it her own arrogance, her need to feel pursued, that made her so cruel to James?

The friends Sirius had yanked her away from earlier came over, and questioned Lily about what happened. All she could answer was that he had come to talk about James.

"Sirius is really sexy when he's pissed off," the brunette of the group, Andriana, said with a giggle. Lily rolled her eyes, but didn't argue the fact that he did look quite good when he was angry.

She felt a tap on her shoulder, and half expected it to be Sirius again, and she turned around to tell him off, or maybe to apologize, when she saw that it was Lothair Raston, the Slytherin who had hit on her earlier, smiling at her in that way that made her feel extremely uncomfortable.

"Hey baby," he drawled, his cruel brown eyes rolling lecherously over her body.

Lily groaned, not in the mood to deal with him. "Go away, Lothair."

"Oh, I just can't do that, baby, you're too fine for me to leave," he said as he moved closer to her.

"I'm serious, leave me alone," she exclaimed, trying her best to hide her fear as he came even closer.

"And I'm serious about not leaving you alone," he replied as he put his oily hand on her stomach, and threatened to move down as she squirmed underneath him He moved in to kiss her and Lily tried to get away but he held her in a grip like iron. She screwed her eyes shut, when a voice stopped Lothair.

"And I'm Sirius fuckin' Black," growled a familiar deep voice as Sirius' fist connected with Lothair's face, and the greasy Slytherin hit the ground like lead.

Lily looked up at Sirius in shock, and her friends all looked at him as though he was the Adonis. "Was that too dramatic an entrance?" he asked the other girls, a grin playing at his lips.

"Perfect!" was all Andriana could squeak as his handsome face had the same effect on her that it did to most other girls- it rendered her almost completely incoherent.

Lothair moaned on the ground underneath them, and Sirius looked in disgust at him. "Get out of here, Raston, I don't want to see you near her again," he snarled, much like a dog would.

The Slytherin tossed him a glare, which Sirius returned more impressively, and Lothair looked away, clearly frightened. He got up quickly and walked away with as much dignity as he could possess, all the while holding his nose, which was bleeding profusely into his hand.

"Thank… thank you," Lily said, still stunned by what had happened. "But… why?"

"I came back because I had forgotten a vital point in my pro-James argument, though with all the excitement I fear I've forgotten what I was going to say, and I saw that slime ball all over you."

"But I've been horrible to you!" Lily cried out, hoping Sirius would read the apology in her voice.

"Yeah, you have," Sirius said, bluntly, "but maybe not everything is about me," he said pointedly, his eyes inescapable in their truth.

Lily sighed in defeat. "Point well taken, Black."

"Besides, if James found out that I had seen that happen and hadn't tried to stop it, he'd throw me off the bloody roof," Sirius joked. After a moment, his voice became serious again. "Besides, I pretty much signed a document in blood saying that I would protect you."

"What?" Lily asked, confused by his words.

"James really likes you a lot, Lils. Trust me when I say he would lay down his life for you in a heartbeat. And since you matter that much to him, I won't let anything happen to you either. So like it or not, you've always got people on your side."

Lily's eyes watered at his words, and she moved towards him, giving him a grateful hug. "Thank you," she whispered. "Can you forgive me for what I said earlier?"

"I dunno… that was pretty harsh. Actually, if I calculate this right, I'd say you owe me a favor if I do decide to forgive you," Sirius replied slyly.

Lily bit back a remark about how he did think of himself all the time, but instead said, "That sounds about right."

"Alright, to pay me back for playing the dashing hero, you have to spend a whole day with James, with no, and I repeat NO, snarky remarks unless he's really being an ass. And even then, I want you to remember that even if sometimes his words come out wrong, his heart is in the right place. I mean not all the time… actually only about 40 of the time… he's not a saint or anything, but when it comes to you, Lily, it's almost always there."

"That was sweet, Black. Are you sure you two aren't going out or anything?" she replied cheekily, with a joking smile that grew into a laugh as she saw Sirius' disgusted face.

"That's it, I'm pretty sure the pact says I'm not allowed to kill you, but damn it, Evans, screw that…"

She laughed again and touched his shoulder to show him she was joking. "I guess I do owe you big time-"

"Even more for making that crack about me and James…"

"-So I guess I'll be spending the rest of the day with Potter? If he makes one arrogant remark, I'm going to kill him, though," Lily warned.

"Ten arrogant remarks, then you can kill him."

"Three."

"Eight."

"Five."

"Seven."

"Deal," Lily said, and they shook on it.

Sirius grinned, and led her back to where James was still, not surprisingly, sitting in the same spot, looking just as dejected as he had when Sirius had left earlier. Remus was sitting next to him, apparently trying to cheer him up, to little avail.

"Hello mate," Sirius said happily.

"Where did you go, I-" James started saying, until he looked up and saw Lily looking down at him, her red hair brilliant in the sunlight. If James wasn't mistaken, she was actually smiling at him?

"Evans?"

"Potter. I, um," she looked nervously at Sirius, who elbowed her as if to prod her. "Umm come with me," she said softly.

"What?" James nearly yelped.

"Come on, get up, we're going for a walk."

"We? As in… you and me?"

"Let's go Potter," Lily said, but with laughter in her voice.

"You heard the woman," Sirius said, grinning at his friend's confusion, "Get off your ass."

James nearly flew up off the ground and his hand went instinctively to his hair to muss it up, and she rolled her eyes. Grabbing his hand, Lily pulled him along with her, leaving the rest of his friends behind. A huge smile stretched itself across James' face, and he felt as though he were the happiest man in the world.

James turned his head to look back at Sirius, and mouthed the words "what did you do?"

Sirius grinned back at him, and winked.


End file.
